Twitter has appointed its first female board member, Marjorie Scardino, former CEO of media company Pearson, who is also joining the audit committee, replacing David Rosenblatt.

“Scardino is a smart choice: via her Pearson background, she has deep connections into the media industry, as well as into Europe,” writes Techcrunch. “The media industry is a key partner for Twitter as the company builds out its revenue-generating business with advertising and coordinated information dissemination; and it has also pinpointed international growth — that is, outside the U.S. — as a key aim going forward.”

After six years of a mostly white, male board, it’s a smart choice for the microblogging service, criticized for its lack of gender diversity.

Last year, the issue surfaced with rumblings that some on the board wanted to hire a female, further fueled by All Things D’s Kara Swisher, wondering if such an appointment would precede their IPO. Continue reading...

The editor of The Financial Times has announced big changes at the paper, reflecting how digital is continuing to transform even the most venerable and longstanding European-based news media titles.

An email by editor Lionel Barber to his staff announced that the news organization would cut 35 jobs, relegate print second to digital and hire 10 digital journalists as “old titles” like the FT continue to be “routinely disrupted by new entrants such as Google, LinkedIn and Twitter.”

The strategy signals a “big cultural shift for the FT that is only likely to be achieved with further structural change,” Barber’s email continued. Journalists need to become “content editors rather than page editors," he said. "We must rethink how we publish our content, when and in what form, whether conventional news, blogs, video or social media.”Continue reading...

While eyes remain on the impact of the recent tsunami that devastated Japan, the latest State of the News Media report from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism describes another kind of tsunami — digital news.

This year's overview of the major trends impacting American journalism brings bad news for news organizations because "in the digital realm, the news industry is no longer in control of its own future."

While some may think the media has been obsessed with fretting about its own death, on the business side major media brands haven't done enough to adapt to digital, mobile and social media.Continue reading...